A1 Bulgaria's EBITDA up 18% y/y in H1, revenue grows 11%
A1 Bulgaria, part of A1 Telekom Austria Group, said on Wednesday that its earnings before interest and taxes, amortisation and depreciation (EBITDA) increased by 18.1% year-on-year to 111 million euro ($131 million) in the first half of 2021.
A1 Bulgaria's revenue rose by an annual 11.3% to 277.3 million euro in the January-June period of this year, as services revenue added 8.2%, reaching 213.9 million euro, the company said in a statement.
Revenue from mobile services rose 7.2% to 142.7 million euro in the review period, while fixed-line service revenue grew 10.1% to 71.2 million euro. Revenue from device sales went up 24.6% to 61.1 million euro.
A1 Bulgaria's average revenue per user increased by 9.2% year-on-year to 6.40 euro in the first half of 2021, the company said. Mobile services subscribers decreased by 0.6% to about 3.4 million.
Earlier this year, Bulgaria's communications regulator awarded 20-year 5G frequency licences with national coverage to the three main telecommunication companies operating in the country in a tender that fetched 13.4 million levs ($8.1 million/6.8 million euro). A1 Bulgaria received a licence for using frequencies in the 3600-3700 MHz spectrum for which it proposed to pay a one-off fee of 4.7 million levs, the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) said at the time.
A1 Bulgaria competes with Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), which operates under the brand name Vivacom and is part of Dutch-based United Group, and Telenor Bulgaria owned by Dutch-registered investment group PPF.